Tales from the Calamity Lore Discussion

[Anonymoose]

Currently working hard to get the annotated Tales finished before the next one comes out, but popping in to say that I did manage to read the translations of the other languages. Indeed, English is unique in Louisoix saying "If I don't return" rather than "I will not be returning." The English version conveys Louisoix's gentle personality, actually leaving out his admission and simply saying he told Minfilia "the rest." The German translation articulates the concise Japanese most clearly without omitting the blunt truth.

Das Ritual ähnelte einer Primae-Beschwörung und barg die Gefahr, alle Bewohner Eorzeas in von den Zwölf Besessene zu verwandeln.
The ritual resembled a primal summong and had the potential to turn every resident of Eorzea into Twelve's tempered servants.

Er würde die Kraft der Götter kanalisieren müssen, ohne ihnen Gelegenheit zu geben, sich körperlich zu manifestieren.
He would have to channel the power of the gods, but without giving them the opportunity to manifest physically.

Dazu gab es nur einen Weg: die Eliminierung des Mediums, kurz bevor dies geschah.
There was only one way: the elimination of the medium, just before this happened.

We've known for a while that Louisoix's plan failed because the Twelve's strength alone was not enough to overcome Bahamut's power, but we didn't know that even if Dalamud was a simply moon, even if Bahamut did not appear, even if the Twelve's power were enough to raise Dalamud, Louisoix still intended to die. The plan was that, after the Twelve's power was invoked, but before they could physically manifest, he would take his own life to interrupt the ritual. He never got far enough into the summoning for us to see that part, however, because Bahamut interrupted the ritual well beforehand and he decided to fall back on something else...

Makes you wonder, though... when he sends the Warriors of Light away, you see the same type of circular glyph that appears around the wrists of summoners around his own, and within it is the symbol of Althyk. Were Bahamut's disappearance and all this memory loss a result of Althyk's power, as well? Was this invocation interrupted, or did Althyk manifest somewhere? Or is it all related to something else?

[Brine_Gildchaff]

The plan was that, after the Twelve's power was invoked, but before they could physically manifest, he would take his own life to interrupt the ritual. He never got far enough into the summoning for us to see that part, however, because Bahamut interrupted the ritual well beforehand and he decided to fall back on something else...

... I wonder if Gaius knew all this, and that's why he taunts us that way on the elevator to the Ultima Weapon's cradle. One thing is for sure, it now makes perfect sense why we DON'T do as he mockingly suggested.

Makes you wonder, though... when he sends the Warriors of Light away, you see the same type of circular glyph that appears around the wrists of summoners around his own, and within it is the symbol of Althyk. Were Bahamut's disappearance and all this memory loss a result of Althyk's power, as well? Was this invocation interrupted, or did Althyk manifest somewhere? Or is it all related to something else?

Althyk's domain is time. Could he simple have invoked the remnants of Althyk's dissipating power to transplant the Warriors of Light (and perhaps Bahamut too?) to a later, safer time period? But it still makes no sense that Bahamut now lies beneath Carteneaux, restrained by his Neuro-links and the three (or perhaps four?) Ragnarok interrment hulks. Isn't he visibly free of all of those things during the End of an Era cutscene?

[Anonymoose]

Probably that would have desolated, if not the realm

Yeah, it was stated as the ritual was prepared that fully summoning twelve deities would probably reduce the realm to a lifeless husk.

the official wording of Althyk's description has always bugged me

I hold no more of a linguistically-related degree than you do, so take this with a grain of salt, but I feel that the issue is a lack of agreement between the two intended blocks. Althyk is [the surveyor of change and space] and [god of time]. Without a second "the" to create agreement, the third "and" disrupts the intended two-block perception and creates the confusing illusion of three sections. Saying "Althyk is [the surveyor of change and space] and [the god of time]" would be - maybe not more clear - but more grammatically correct. I would have used an interrupter, myself, but I do so love my interrupters: "Althyk, god of time, is the surveyor of change and space."

I wonder if Gaius knew all this

He knew enough, though probably not as much as people might give him credit for. As far as I can tell, his specific observation, "Why do you not respond in kind?" about summoning the Twelve to face the primals was less about showing us how much he knew, and more of a rhetorical question meant to link "Why do you place your faith in false gods?" to "Because you are weak, and that's why I will win." He doesn't really know all that much. I mean, he allied with the freakin' Ascians; how well-informed about the true nature of our reality could he be? For all he knows, our leaders are weak and the Twelve are real. Granted you probably still shouldn't summon them lest they omnomnom the vital essence of our reality, but still.

SE's kept this whole The Twelve thing up for far too long for the truth to be entirely atheistic, methinks. As much sense as I can make out of theories that the Twelve aren't actually deities, I can't shake the feeling that there's something there. "Eorzea - a land embraced by mighty gods" was literally the first thing in the reveal, the first thing in every promotion, and a huge part of the PR. How cheap would it be for all that to be bullshit? (And that's coming from the guy who came up with the theory that the Twelve were just a bunch of leftover augmented Allagans like Phlegethon that wowed the crap out of recent migrants to the realm and inspired a religion. I just like putting on the darksteelfoil hat and musing, sometimes.)

Althyk's domain is time. Could he simple have invoked the remnants of Althyk's dissipating power to transplant the Warriors of Light (and perhaps Bahamut too?) to a later, safer time period?

Althyk could definitely swing our teleportation into spacetime limbo, and I think we're meant to assume that he did. After that, though, Louisoix just gives up as Bahamut charges a massive attack and looks away, smiling as he embraces death. Something unrelated to his spell may have come into play at that moment. As I said earlier in the thread, my original guess was that Dalamud was so well-engineered that, even in shattered pieces, it attempted to initiate repairs and reintegrate, causing Bahamut to be torn asunder when the fallen internment hulks embedded in the ground re-linked. Or maybe Althyk's magicks were still working and the bright light was the god's power binding Bahamut and annihilating Louisoix, interrupting both of their spells before the flare could go off or Althyk could manifest, thus hitting the pause button on the Calamity to let the realm heal enough to survive until we could clean house. Whatever happened, it's meant to be a mystery revealed at the end of the third coil, so I've stopped trying to figure it out.